Muzikifan,
CD Review
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Something new and different to tickle you between the ears. This is a project of Earthsync and a response to the tsunami that devastated the coasts of the Indian ocean on Boxing Day 2004. The producers went looking for folk musicians among the survivors. Because the ocean is the unifying factor of cultures as disparate as Myanmar (b.k.a. Burma), the Maldives, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand, there are currents that flow from East Africa and the Middle East and swell around India to Indonesia, unifying the music. The album is very harmonious and consistent, perhaps due also to the production which has added a studio sheen to everything. The in-house contributors are Patrick Sebag who provides keyboard and programming, and Yotam Agam, who engineered, and recorded the Madras Strings at A.R. Rehman's Chennai studios. Paul Jacob adds bass to many tracks. Otherwise each track has different singers and instruments from the beach communities around the Indian Ocean. The first album is great, it opens with a version of "Glorious Sun," (a song that kicks off the second CD) and continues to unfold mysterious and wonderful sounds for an hour. But I am ambivalent about the second disc: if the music is so great it overflows one disc you want to hear more, but sometimes a second disc is just the container of leftover ideas, and I think this project could have been accommodated on a single disc. Disc Two's "Sunset in Akkarai" has spoken comments in English about the music, which are completely unnecessary, and ruin a moody violin solo. The talking continues on the next piece too, "Nium nium" which should have remained instrumental. There is also a DVD, not present in my copy, but it aired on WorldLink TV in June, and will probably return there. The packaging is deluxe, with nice photographs. While the producers stress they are dedicating the project to the survivors of the tsunami there is no mention of them getting the proceeds from sales. 07/11/10
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